


Dulce et Decorum est

by evilmaniclaugh



Category: Firefly
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:18:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilmaniclaugh/pseuds/evilmaniclaugh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne has been taken prisoner by the feds and, convinced that there's no hope of rescue, he reflects on his relationship with Mal.</p><p>Use mouseover for translation, poem titles and authors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The hole they called it. It consisted of four steel walls set inside a concrete shell and was the place where the feds kept those prisoners who were considered highly dangerous.

Once upon a time Jayne Cobb was a dangerous man, but now he was just cold, dog-tired and desperate. He'd been stuck here way too long in this gorram rat trap, starving hungry and wearing the same bloody rags that were all that was left of his clothes after the fighting had finished. After _he_ was finished.

If bait was what they were after then he was the wrong kind for sure. They needed something a mite more attractive to lure the captain in -- a brightly woven, softer-than-silk fly to tie onto the hook, not a wriggling ten-a-penny maggot like him. He was no use to them and the sooner they realised it the better.

As the sun worked its way across the sky he watched the shadows elongate, waiting impatiently for nightfall when, if he was lucky, he'd get fed dry tack and water. If he ever got back home he'd make sure never to grumble about protein stew again.

His mind wandered so much now that he reckoned they must've been feeding him drugs along with the food. Sometimes his thoughts were so vivid that he could smell the produce in the local market of his home town and the dry sweet scent of warm hay as it was harvested from the fields behind his home. He imagined that big old kitchen table, scarred from years of use, laid out with one of his ma's Sunday feasts. He'd be pinching Mattie under cover of the worn linen cloth, making the kid squirm and look at him with big wet eyes but his gorram brother'd never cry for real and that had been the single most cause of Jayne's hatred toward the kid. Couldn't bully him no more though, nor make amends, 'cause Matthew was dead, killed by one of them outbreaks of Creek Flu that regularly plagued the Nova system.

"'M sorry, Mattie," he muttered, huddling up in the corner of the pit and resting his head on his knees. That family homestead was long gone and all he could smell now was piss and mud… _deeper and deeper, churned from earth, spirit, and blood._

As dusk purpled into darkness an inhuman whine started up from one of the other holes nearby. Whoever it was must've been as desperate for food as Jayne, both of them knowing for certain that once more they were going to be left to starve. In his pa's soldiering days this would have been an inhuman act, but now the Alliance had fully established themselves there was no more room for that kind of consideration. Trying to find any kind of goodness in the verse nowadays was nigh on impossible. Could be why he'd turned coat to fight for a more righteous bunch of outlaws. Mal Reynolds was decent from skin through to innards, 'though Jayne'd never tell his captain such a thing.

Sometimes he thought back to how he'd ended up here -- the moment when he was way out on point and had been ambushed by a whole squad of rutting troopers. The job must've been a set up which was nothing out of the ordinary for the crew of Serenity, except that this time they weren't geared up for it. They'd been dealing with Badger for so many years now that each one of them had forgotten what a _hundan_ he really was. Jayne could've used his own brain to sniff out trouble, but he'd gotten… what was that word Book'd learned him? Complacent, that was it. They was all complacent that day and in a way it was a blessing that he was the one to get got. Kaylee or River would've gone and wasted away to bones by now.

Laying back on the cold floor he looked up at the stars, wondering if one of them little dots was his home. Serenity was everything to him and he couldn't imagine living anywhere else but inside her battle-worn hull with its broken down quarters that were a sight more welcoming than they should've been. Most of all he couldn't imagine having a family more close knit than them folk had become. It was a gorram pisser that he'd only realised it now that he was never going to see them again.

"Give 'em hell from me, Mal."

Jayne imagined the string of words wandering up into the empty sky like a message in a bottle. The moonbrained notion distracted him from the crawling feeling that was coming from the worst of the wounds on his thigh. If he was lucky it was infested; if not it was the infection that was eating away at his flesh.

"Rutting shut up," he yelled, praying to God that the other prisoner would quit howling and just get on and die.

*

Mal never expected to feel this Spartan hardness, rigid as steel yet as yielding and warm as fur. At first he'd been wary of touching, imagining the skin to be tacky from liquored dirt and ingrained sweat, but after mustering up some courage he discovered fresh clean planes, the only stickiness to be found leaking free in waves of excitement.

They clashed like warriors on the battlefield, naked bodies darkening red with bruises and unashamed need, limbs tangling together as they forced each other into submission, giving and taking and biting and gripping and pulling and sucking and spilling over and over again.

He awoke with his hand still working himself down, a damp stain spreading across the crotch of his sleep pants as tears bubbled away beneath tired eyelids. This man he dreamt of was not a familiar version of Jayne, but he'd become a recurring night time visitor ever since the merc had gone missing.

Stumbling a little from the after effects of orgasm Mal slipped out of the soiled pyjama pants and after wrapping a towel around his waist, headed for the bathroom. Then, once the evidence of his loneliness was washed away he leant against the wall of the tiny shower stall and let the steaming jets hammer some sense into his head. The one good thing about being on board ship was that the recycling systems meant that there was always a constant supply of boiling hot water. Same couldn't be said of life on Shadow, 'though everything back then was far simpler and there were moments he longed for a return to those days.

Once again he found himself reliving the moment they lost Jayne to the squad of purple bellies. Each time he tried to fix things, making certain never to assume that just because the mercenary was big he was always going to be fine on his own. Hindsight was a vicious companion.

After they'd returned, battle-weary and broken, to the safety of the ship, Zoë had asked him a tough question.

'Do we try to get him back, sir? Or…'

The 'or' had burned deep. He could still feel the sting when he thought back to it even though he'd known it was just Zoë being her usual practical self. There were a thousand things he'd wanted to snap back at her, but he'd restrained himself and instead had headed for the cockpit, his plan being to track all Alliance ships that had left atmo recently, even though he was fully aware that finding the merc was akin to hunting for a needle in a haystack.

*

Days passed by and as Jayne's mind drifted off into the black he had this strange sensation of being as light as a feather. Night times used to be the worst, but now that that lucky _hundan_ of a howler had gone belly up the blanket of darkness did a job of setting him at peace. Light was nothing but a hell bitch; it made his eyes hurt and, worse still, forced him to focus on the sorry state he was in.

There had never been a single time he could recall wishing for death to ride in and snatch him away. He was born a fighter. Ma had told him that he'd come out of her body kicking and yelling, throwing his fists around in a constant demand for food and attention. That was probably the reason he'd hated his little brother so much. He wasn't fond of sharing back then and Mattie had a way of taking more than his split of everything -- especially the attention part. Poor sick Mattie. Poor dead Mattie.

Jayne could've died of shame back on Higgins Moon when them Mudders went and made him out to be some kind of folk hero. He didn't really want to end it all though, just had an urge to get the gorram hell away from there as quick as rutting possible. He should've wanted to die after he'd shopped Crazy and her brother to the feds on Ariel, but when push came to shove and Mal had left him in the airlock on the verge of being spaced, he would've given away the contents of his personal weapons locker just to stay on board.

He'd become a better man after that day. Times had been hard and he didn't want to make things harder on everyone around him so he'd knuckled down and done his job with no word of complaint. Well, maybe that was a lie. Maybe there was just more of the frowning and less of the actual grumbling. Leastways, he'd done his best and he only hoped that the some of the crew had noticed. If they raised their glasses to him in a goodbye toast it'd be honour enough.

Sometimes, during his more lucid moments, Jayne wondered what would become of them all. The livable parts of the verse were shrinking down--those rocks that weren't run by feds were swarming with reavers--and he had a notion that if Mal kept up this skirmish it would mean certain death for everyone.

Folks were starting to come apart at the seams. For months Zoë and Wash had carried this sadness with them, noticed by all but the captain. Not that Mal was heartless; it was just that he'd stopped remembering how to switch on his feelings and weren't able to see how much some people needed to found their own families. Kaylee and Simon would be coupling up too if'n the mechanic had her way and the doc could stop drooling over his sister -- a thing that were all manner of wrong, even in Jayne's polluted eyes. That kind of business weren't uncommon, 'specially in the rim systems, but for Core folk to behave that way was a shocker. Poor little Kaylee's heart would be broke for sure when she found out the truth of it.

Jayne had a fondness for the girl that was more than just an attraction for a pretty piece of trim. To begin with he would've gladly had a hump with her if'n she'd been inclined, but after a while had passed his feelings for the mechanic had grown more kinlike. Doc should've learned a leaf or two from his book 'cause lessons weren't always about schooling. He'd've taken some pleasure in learning the prissy young man a thing or two about the ways of the 'verse. How to treat women proper. The ways to get sexed and how much fun can be had from it if you look in the right direction.

A dirty chuckle escaped Jayne's dry lips. Yeah, he'd've enjoyed learning Simon Tam some tricks alright, not least because of the trouble it would have caused. He would maybe have considered making a serious play for the doc excepting that Book wouldn't've approved. He'd never met a shepherd who'd thought well of sly sexing and even though the old man was his friend and confessor he didn't never talk about them kind of feelings to him. Preachers were special folk. To push away all kinds of humanness and replace it with religion had to mean a person was a good un. Or maybe hiding something big. Or maybe just a freak.

But respect for Book weren't the only thing to stop him from trying it on with Simon Tam. There was another, far bigger roadblock in his way and that was Mal Reynolds. The captain wouldn't have spaced him for sexing the doc--lessen it weren't so much of the consenting kind--but he would've looked at him harsh and then fell into one of his deep long-lasting silences that affected everyone on board. Jayne didn't like the uncomfortableness them spells brought about. Like the time Mal was tortured and they didn't know if he was ever gonna get back to his old self. He'd felt sick deep in his belly for weeks after that, tiptoeing around on eggshells and trying to keep as quiet as gorram possible so as not to rile the captain up.

"_Shi!_"

Screaming out loud he tugged the gorram rat off of his leg, breaking its scrawny neck and throwing it over the razor wire fencing at the top of the pit. It caught on the uppermost section of barbs, hanging silhouetted limply in the moonlight, _heavy like meat_ and all Jayne could think of was the wasted opportunity for food.

*

Resting an arm on the back of each chair, Mal scanned the screens as the brother and sister duo sifted slickly through Cortex data.

"You sure you're not missing anything on purpose?" he asked, his voice verging on petulant.

River Tam turned and glared. "Crew does not function capably without adequate weapon support so why would we be concealing anything from you?"

Feeling as small and ineffectual as a snapping puppy dog Mal was about to leave the Tams to it when a thought struck him viciously across the temples.

"_Wo de tian a!_"

"Is there a problem, Captain?" Simon looked curiously at him.

"We gotta head for Persephone. I conjure if anyone knows where Jayne is it'll be Badger."

The look that passed between the Tam siblings made Mal wonder whether that particular idea had already been raised some time ago, but then listening wasn't famous for being one of his best qualities.

Ignoring the matching know-it-all expressions he stepped into the fore passage, hell bent on a search mission for Wash. Using the com link would have been more efficient, but wouldn't have allowed him time to contemplate what it would actually be like having Jayne back on board. He had a niggling feeling it'd be a gorram awkward experience, especially if he was subconsciously hoping for a reunion with the man he'd been dreaming about for a month.

*

By Jayne's reckoning it had been another five days since he'd been fed. Luckily it rained a fair amount on this _gou shi buru_ planet so he'd been able to drink a little, but his stomach gnawed at him as if his guts were digesting their own selves. Dead black eyes glinted wet in the moonlight and picking up the rodent he'd killed a few minutes ago he rubbed its stringy wet fur against his beard, trying to summon up enough desperation to rip it open and find some raw muscle to chew on.

Booted feet thudded across the pathways and came to a halt at the concrete surround of his pit and just for a moment Jayne imagined someone was there to feed him or maybe even free him, but instead there was a heavy constrictive silence.

The waiting was driving him closer to the brink of full on madness. "Let me out," he yelled. "Leastways give me a trial."

Nothing.

"Some food." He paused and then added in quieter volume, "Please."

Nothing.

Losing all sense of reason he used up the last of his energy with a full blown rant at the jack-booted stranger above him. "No-one's coming for me, you rutting sumbitch. Mal Reynolds ain't dumb enough to rescue me."

"We never expected he would," came a cold voice. "We're just ridding the verse of a few more vermin. Happy eating, Mr Cobb."

With as much spirit as he could muster Jayne threw the body of the rat away from him, but this time, instead of impaling itself symbolically on the wire, it dropped back down and landed at his feet, a soggy reminder of how low he'd fallen.

Curling into a foetal position he lay on his side in the sticky mud, his hands cupped in front of him to collect the rain that had once again begun falling in a steady stream. It felt like tears. "_Human tears and human blood,_" he said to no one, his voice no more than a crackle of interference.

*

Persephone was the writhing pit of dregs that served as a base for Badger's operations and to Mal's confused state of mind the journey there lasted at least an aeon or two. More and more of his sleep was taken up with obsessing over this warrior until it had reached the point where he was nervous of even stretching out on his bunk.

Somehow, a remote bond had developed between him and Jayne and it was a new and disconcerting sensation. Not that he had a bad relationship with the merc, but no one could ever accuse them of being close. The animosity had long since worn away and what was left was a study in control rather than friendship. Nowadays Jayne did his job efficiently with far less of that tetchiness and there were moments when Mal could even admit to liking the man. Those times however were few and far between and were offset by Jayne's exasperating habit of ribbing him incessantly over minor things.

Breathing heavily as he recovered from another of those rutting dreams Mal came to the conclusion that the sensible thing would be to give Jayne up for dead and spend his time on Persephone searching the Eavesdown bars for a replacement gunman. But, like listening, sense was another of those qualities in which he was sorely lacking.

Relieved that this dream was free from shameful emissions he dressed quickly and made his way to the cockpit where River was lounging with her boot heels resting on the display panels and her dress rucked up around her thighs. A stranger would never guess that his little albatross was either graceful or capable of exhibiting lethal force.

"Jayne Cobb wants to sleep," said the girl, not even glancing around to see who had entered through the hatch. "_Cover him, cover him soon! And with thick-set masses of memoried flowers, hide that red wet thing I must somehow forget._"

Mal swallowed her words down into his stomach, digesting the imagery and forcing back a surge of bile. Then he remembered where those lines came from. It was the final stanza of an ancient poem from Earth-That-Was. To His Love it was called.

"You can read him?" he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose to force back the headache. "Does that mean he's close by?"

"It means nothing, Captain." River turned and shook her head sadly, dark locks of hair falling in strings across that strange pixie face.

Was she ever going to get any older? Mal wondered. Was Jayne?

*

A long time ago Jayne had come across the captain reading poetry. He'd looked over his shoulder and, having seen them girlish words inked onto old fashioned paper, had smirked at the _gou shi_ that was written there. Finally aware that he was not alone in the cockpit Mal had slammed the book shut and left the room blank-faced and thin-lipped.

Later, when Jayne'd been retelling the story of the captain's sissy pastime and guffawing hard at the memory, Book had taken him to one side and asked him to show some respect. He didn't for many months, just kept on slighting Mal with taunts about his manliness until this one time when he'd almost got his whole arm shot off and was laid up injured for a while. The shepherd had kept him company while he was holed up in the infirmary and to pass the hours had started him reading him some of them gorram poems. Jayne'd discovered that the words weren't sissy at all and they'd gone and buried themselves deep in his head like seeds, taking firm root there.

_'He'd never seen so many dead before.   
The lilting words danced up and down his brain,   
While corpses jumped and capered in the rain.   
No, no; he wouldn't count them any more...   
The dead have done with pain:   
They've choked; they can't come back to life again.'_

The shepherd had left him in a less-than-peaceful state with a couple of well worn books gazing at him from the top of the surgical equipment locker. In restless moments he'd found himself peering at the tiny print and letting more of them words soak up into his brain. They shouldn't've meant a thing to him. He'd not fought in the Unification war--never saw reason to go get hisself killed--more to the point, he didn't have a care for which side won as long as he had food to eat and trim to hump. He was a thoughtless man back then, but had since learned a few lessons of his own and even though he had to work hard at fathoming out some of the words, that poetry began to make brutal sense.

_"O Captain! My Captain!"_

Jayne's voice was so parched from thirst and lack of use that the sentence barely escaped his lips. His fearful trip was gorram done. Please, God, let it be done.


	2. Chapter 2

  
"I didn't 'ave nothing to do with it, Mal. I swear."

Even without Jayne Cobb hanging over him like a mountainous threat Badger was still shaking from his trademark bowler down to his boots. Caught on his own without his team of muscle to protect him the shifty little fence was a nervous wreck.

"I set you up with an honest deal." The man peered hopefully up at Mal. "I hardly ever work with the feds. They don't offer enough dosh to make it worthwhile. Expect us to slave for the good of the bleeding Alliance."

"I think he's telling the truth, sir." Zoë's pistol was aimed squarely at Badger's crotch. "If not he'd've most likely wet himself by now."

"You could be right, Zo." Mal paced up and down the alley, kicking out at the piles of garbage. "And seeing as I'm feeling a mite compassionate today just take out a kneecap and leave him his _ji ba_ to play with."

"Mal. Christ, no." Badger dropped down to a crouched position, protecting all the parts of him that were under threat. "I ain't heard nothing for sure, but there is a place the feds dump their strays. Right near where that drop off of yours was too, if I ain't mistaken."

Resisting the urge to kick the man in the nuts Mal squatted down in front of him. "We already checked all the facilities in that area, Badger, so I know for certain that you're a liar."

He had every intention to use threats over violence, but somehow Badger ended up sprawled on his back with the sole of a boot resting on his throat.

"This place ain't registered though," Badger croaked. "It's on Restal, one of the Salisbury moons. There's nothing there but rock and this little prison. It's the truth."

Leaning down, Mal removed his foot from Badger's Adam's apple and grabbed a fistful of suit lapels, pulling the man to a sitting position. "Next time you want us to do you a favour mind these words carefully and remember to let me know where trouble's likely to erupt from," he murmured.

Badger got to his feet, shrugging his bravado back into place the moment Zoë's gun was safely tucked up in its holster. "Oi! It weren't a favour, it was business. It ain't my fault your gorilla can't look after himself." Dusting himself down he pushed the creases out of his bowler hat. "He's getting a bit long in the tooth for working as a heavy, I reckon."

Mal shook his head in disgust. "Badger, I swear that if you keep making them kind of disparaging remarks about my crew then I am going to throttle every last breath outta your puny body."

"Leave it," said Zoë. "He's not worth your effort."

He was about to walk away when Zoë landed a swift punch to Badger's guts forcing the little man to double over and expel a long miserable groan and a shower of spittle.

"What was that now?" Mal asked in confusion.

"All I said was that he wasn't worth your effort." Zoë grinned and massaged her aching knuckles. "Never said a word about mine."

Mal grinned, slinging an arm around the woman's shoulders. "You defending Jayne Cobb's honour now?"

"Well he may be a gorilla but he's _our_ gorilla. Isn't that so, sir?"

*

Jayne wasn't certain whether he was delirious, dreaming or just plain longing for some familiar faces. Now, instead of being surrounded by four mud spattered concrete walls, he was in the middle of a war zone from hell, the night sky lit up by orange flames and the outline of a personnel carrier looming in front of him.

Ducking down low he was heading for the vehicle, his rifle clutched in both hands like a life belt, when he heard a voice yell out from behind him.

"Wrong way, Private."

Jayne stopped running and stood to full height, looking from side to side in confusion then, from out of nowhere, he was hit full on in the back, his knees collapsing and his body falling face down in the wet mud. Unable to move, he was busy wondering whether his spine had been severed when there was an explosion loud enough to deafen almighty God. Gathering his wits about him, he looked up to see the personnel carrier was no longer just a silhouette against the brightly lit background of war. Now it had blossomed into a ball of vivid flame and was blending perfectly into the scenery.

All of a sudden the weight lifted from his back and hands gripped him firmly around the chest, dragging him up to a kneeling position.

"This time when I tell you to head north for the buildings you think you can manage to do as you're told, Private Cobb?"

Climbing slowly to his feet Jayne turned and saw Mal Reynolds looking the same as ever, only a little bloodier and a touch more wild-eyed. The man was clutching at his arm where a large piece of shrapnel had lodged itself firmly into the muscle.

"Sorry, Captain," he said automatically as they ducked low and ran for relative safety.

"You been hit around the head, Cobb?" Mal looked sideways at him, a smile making itself known through the dirt and that rictus of pain. "I ain't been informed of any promotion as yet so Sarge'll do well enough for now."

Tracey and Anderson waved them through into a ramshackle building where all that remained of the platoon were tending each others' wounds and recovering now that the initial wave of battle was over.

"Where've you been, sir?" asked Zoë as she squatted on the ground next to an unconscious soldier. "I thought we'd lost you."

"Collecting the strays," smirked Mal. "Private Cobb here got his norths and his souths a mite muddled up." He laid down his weapon and in the beam of a halogen lamp that was hanging from a rusty hook peered at the triangular shard of metal that was embedded in the back of his upper arm.

"Let me take a look at that, Sarge." Jayne opened up one of the supply bergens that were stacked neatly at the far end of the shed and unpacked a small medkit, wiping his hands clean with antiseptic. "Reckon it's the least I can do."

Mal nodded and sat down on the floor, leaning forward and resting his head on his knees while Jayne took up a position behind him, his back against the wall and his legs outstretched either side as he examined the embedded shrapnel. It was an intimate way to sit and it should've felt strange having Mal so close against him, but instead it was comforting to feel the warmth of his body.

Switching on another lantern Jayne directed the light so that it was shining onto the back of Mal's arm and then, using a pair of surgical tweezers from the kit, gripped hold of the chunk of metal.

"This is gonna hurt some," he muttered, lower lip pouting as he concentrated on removing the shrapnel as swiftly and painlessly as he could manage.

"I'm pretty much aware of thaaaaaa-"

The sentence devolved into a yelp of agony and then silence as Jayne triumphantly wielded the steel shard in front of his captain's anguished face.

"I'll get the wound cleaned up," he said, helping Mal out of his coat and shirt and feeling the man tense up as soon as he was forced to move his arm. "If'n you need stitching I'll call Zoë over. My fingers ain't nimble enough for that kind of _shi_."

"And while she's sewing me up you can fix my coat seeing as you were the sole reason it got damaged." Mal managed a smile 'though Jayne could see how wan and close to fainting the man was.

"That's a deal," he said as he rooted around in the small supply box of medical equipment, promptly dosing his patient with a syringe full of strong painkiller.

"Hey!" yelped Mal. "If my reactions are off tomorrow and I die because of it then I'll come back and haunt you, you lunk."

"I swear on the bible I'll keep you safe, Sarge." Jayne grinned as he cleaned away the blood and sealed the wound with steri-strips.

"Well now, I don't have much of a faith in your kind of god so you'd better find something shinier to swear on," yawned Mal, giving in to his exhaustion and leaning back against Jayne's chest.

The meds soothed the man into much needed sleep and pulling that grimy brown coat over them Jayne rested his chin on Mal's shoulder and followed suit, lulled by the quiet breathing and solid aura of strength.

 

_Drearily   
The blazing day burnt over him, shot and shell   
Whistling and whining ceaselessly. But light   
Faded at last, and as the darkness fell   
He rose, and crawled away into the night._

 

As he crouched in the corner of that filthy pit Jayne could almost feel the captain there in his arms. Over the course of a year or two he'd begun to envy Zoë for serving under Mal so long. Now it seemed that envy had grown so strong it was turning him delusional.

*

Mal had taken to jerking off before bed in hope that it would rid him of his night time fantasy. The wet dreaming had stopped, but he was still visited by this unfamiliar version of Jayne who stalked him constantly in his sleep.

The closer they got to the Salisbury system, the more Mal began to fret. What if Jayne was dead? Worse still, what if the man was alive and Mal's feelings for him proved to be real and solid and not just the product of an overactive imagination and a need to keep his whole crew safe?

"Mal?"

He heard Wash's voice in the distance, but it took a while for the words to penetrate his brain enough for him to respond.

"Serenity calling Captain Airhead!" said a small dinosaur voice.

Folding his arms and frowning, Mal waited for the pilot to quit clowning around long enough to pass on whatever information he'd acquired.

Wash shrugged and placed the plastic toy next to its friends. "We're approaching Restal and it looks to me like our friend Badger was right. There's some kind of small colony located dark side."

Zoë leant over her husband's shoulder carefully studying the displays. "Take her in then, honey. We have us a man ape to bring home." She looked around at Mal. "Unless you have some other plan, sir?"

"Nope. Landing sounds the best idea to me. Keeps us under the Alliance radar."

"It's been so peaceful," sighed Simon from the hatchway. "But I'm certain that if I think really hard I'll come up with some small thing I've missed about him."

Mal knew that the doc was being smart-mouthed rather than bitchy. They'd all been together too long now not to mourn the loss of one of their own however irritating that particular 'one' could be. "We ain't bringing him back on account of missing him, Doc," he grinned. "More because we need someone big on muscle to load the mule. Also I ain't fond of letting the feds get away with taking anything that's mine: mercenaries, 'fugees and taxes alike."

Agreeing a suitable landing zone with Wash, Mal tried to push away the mental image of him and Jayne wrestling each other to the ground, naked and sweaty. It wasn't the time for thoughts like that. It wasn't ever time.

*

No more. Jayne couldn't take no more of it. Curled up in the corner he tried his best to shelter from the driving rain, concentrating on how good it had felt to have Mal Reynolds in his arms. 'Cepting that none of the holding was real; it was all just hallucination and the beginnings of a slow death. The sad fact was that he'd never done much more'n brush past the captain, let alone had any contact with the man.

The battle had started up again, but this time he weren't fighting shoulder to shoulder with Mal. This time he was just laying here in this stinking hole with grenades and gunfire going off above him.

 

_And I dare you to finish  
what you've started. Because here, Bullet,  
here is where I complete the word you bring  
hissing through the air._

 

He couldn't do it no more. Couldn't think about unsettling words written inside books that he'd never wanted to gorram read in the first place. Words that wouldn't leave him alone. That filled him with shame every time he thought of the Uni War and Serenity Valley. Words that overwhelmed him with a belly-rolling need to be back safe on board ship with Mal Reynolds. Words that made him want to stop sucking in breath and just die quiet in the mud. To give up the ghost.

"Jayne! That you, Jayne?"

He weren't gonna bother looking just to see one of those gorram guards peering over the edge of the hole, waiting for him to entertain them with some crying or begging or painful expiring. No way would he give 'em the satisfaction.

"Jayne, hold fast and we'll get you out, you hear."

He'd grown used to delusions. They'd been comforting for a while, but they didn't feed him or wrap their arms around him to warm him up. He didn't owe them a gorram word.

"Jayne! You better be alive down there, you sumbitch, because I ain't gonna be happy wasting all that fuel getting here just to lug your heavy old corpse out of a hole in the ground."

Slowly the familiar voice forced him to turn his head to the right and with mud oozing like slop into his mouth, he stared up at the wire. The flare of a flashlight glowed bright like engine burn in the black, skewering his eyes until he was blinded.

"Kaylee and Wash are working on getting these fences open. Hang in there, Jayne. Just a while longer now."

There was an almighty clanking sound and Jayne covered his ears, frightened out of his frozen skin as footsteps descended the retracted ladder.

"S'okay, now," came the soothing words. "We ain't here to do nothing but take you home."

He could feel a hand resting on his forehead, but it seemed a million miles away, back to that longed for moment of comradeship during a battle that he'd never been a part of.

"Simon, can you get down here quick. Need you to make sure he's stable enough to…"

Jayne couldn't stand to hear no more kindness and drifted away. Least this way he'd die surrounded by an imaginary family.

*

The moment he saw Jayne Cobb cowering in the corner of that hole Mal came close to losing his gorram lunch. The swagger had gone; all that was left of the mercenary was a shell of caked on dirt and he was instantly transported back to that hell like battlefield with his troops dying like flies around him.

 

_But someone still was yelling out and stumbling  
And floundering like a man in fire or lime--  
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light  
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning._

 

Jayne wasn't stumbling or yelling but he _was_ drowning, almost lost beneath the waves, and a shiver crawled up Mal's spine when he believed that the man, his man, had truly passed away.

Simon was kneeling over Jayne's body, grey mud sticking to his neat black pants and spattering the front of his vest.

"Is he…?" Mal couldn't complete the sentence. He wasn't a one for failure and if the merc was dead there was only one person to blame for it.

"He's alive," stated Simon, his voice a clinical drone, all signs of emotion absent. "You know Jayne, he has the constitution of a horse, but we need to get him back to Serenity now."

The fleeting expression on the young man's face gave away the gravity of the situation and immediately Mal started yelling out orders, demanding rope and muscle power from above.

"Will it be okay to hoist him out of here?" he asked the doctor.

"Well, it won't be pleasant or beneficial to his health, but it'll be better for him if you do it now while he's unconscious. I can't give him meds until I properly assess how bad his injuries are."

As they lifted Jayne out of the pit all Mal could think of was that it should have been a much harder task. He'd didn't allow himself to process how long it must've been since the rutting prison guards had given any of these men some food.

"What do we do about the rest, sir?" asked Zoë quietly as they hefted Jayne onto a stretcher. Her face was screwed up from the effort of ignoring the cacophony of pleas that came from all directions.

Mal considered the options. It wasn't an easy choice, but then again he wasn't in a position to be a soft touch. After all who knew what crimes these people had committed?

The prison itself was a micro-sized facility, managed by a small number of troops who they'd quickly disarmed and shut inside one of the store rooms. Leaving the guards to the mercy of the inmates wasn't the kindest thing to do, but then again they'd chosen to work here and had, by the look of things, happily complied with orders to maltreat the convicts.

Looking at the troubled face of his first mate Mal came to a swift decision. "Open up access to the pits just before you leave, but make certain to tell Kaylee to rig the main gates to lock fast so that there's enough time for us to get clear away." Right now he wanted to concentrate on getting the sick mercenary to the infirmary and was willing to relinquish command for a while. "Simon and I'll be okay carting Jayne back to the ship by ourselves."

 

_If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood   
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,   
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud   
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues._

 

But would Jayne be okay?


	3. Chapter 3

He dreamt he was in hell, red fiery pain sparking inside him and sending a flood of jumbled messages throughout his body. Sometimes the agony searing up his legs was so horrifying that he heard himself beg and felt tears run down his face in hot wet rivers. When the sickness subsided and he finally felt well enough to open his eyes he discovered he was too afraid. If his legs were gone then he'd be no use to no one. If his legs were gone then he'd crawl out into the black and no one would stop him.

_Death, like a familiar, hears   
and look, has made a man of dust   
of a man of flesh._

"He's awake," came the doc's cultured voice.

"Hey there, sweetie. How are you feeling?"

A small work-roughened hand caressed his palm and he flinched a little at the feel of human contact. It had been a lifetime since anyone had touched him.

"Jayne?"

Kaylee was being her usual persistent self and Jayne knew he had no choice. He couldn't hide behind sleep for much longer, 'specially when that the fancy medical machinery had ways of telling when a person was unconscious or not. Slowly he opened his eyes, squinting to ward off the halogen glare until someone dimmed the lights.

"Hi, Jayne," said the little mechanic, leaning over him and grinning from ear to ear.

"Good to see you back with us." Simon shone a dose of extra vicious light into his eyes and then listened to the workings inside his chest.

"Am I-?" Jayne stumbled over the words, raising himself up and checking the lie of the sheet to see if he still had all his limbs attached. Everything _looked_ the shape it oughta be.

"I've had to do some pretty extensive reconstruction surgery on your right leg. There was nerve damage from the infected wound and a lot of tissue had to be cut away."

Heart sinking all the way to the floor Jayne was surprised to feel Simon's hand clasp at his.

"You're going to be fine," the doc said reassuringly. "It'll just take you a while to get back to full strength."

Forcing himself up to a sitting position Jayne rubbed a hand over his beard -- or the short cropped bristles where his beard used to be.

Kaylee looked at him with big innocent eyes. "Simon and I decided maybe a wash and a shave would make you feel better when you woke up."

"Did y'all enjoy seeing my man parts then?" he croaked, taking a sip of water from the bottle Simon handed him.

Kaylee's mischievous laugh and the blush on the doc's face raised Jayne's spirits a few notches. "Can I try walking?" he asked. His leg _felt_ alive and he sure as heck wanted to test it out. Maybe he'd go on a wander to visit the rest of the crew.

Simon rushed forward. "Jayne, no! It's not going to be as eas-"

The agony and humiliation as he collapsed onto the floor was extreme, his injured limb, as useless as a piece of rubber, giving way beneath him. Tendrils of pain coiled around him, enough to make him pass out, and for that second before he slid into blackness he thought maybe Mal was beside him.

*

Watching from the view pane, Mal was down the stairway almost quicker than his legs could carry him. Grabbing onto the hatchway to stop himself from hurtling into the infirmary like a madman he knelt beside Jayne and looked up at the doctor.

"What happened?" he asked curtly.

"It's my fault. I underplayed his injuries in order not to worry him too much."

Carefully the two men lifted Jayne back onto the bed and while Kaylee fussed around him like a mother hen, tucking in the sheet and covering him with a blanket, Mal pulled Simon over to one side to find out some necessary truths.

"How bad is it?" he questioned, trying not to think of how shrunken the big merc had seemed when he was crumpled on the floor dressed only in a pair of shorts and one of those ragged tee-shirts that had long seen better days. "Will he walk again?"

"As far as I can tell, yes he will. The menders have done their work," Simon glanced at his unconscious patient, "but it'll require physiotherapy and a lot of effort on his part. Are you prepared to carry a dead weight around for the months it requires for him to recuperate?"

The interjectory "Simon!" showed exactly what the mechanic thought of the question, but Mal had other things to consider above emotions. The good of the whole crew was his overriding concern. Could they afford to look after a useless member? It was possible it'd be better for all of them if Jayne rehabilitated at a specialist centre or maybe back home on Nova Six. He had a family, didn't he?

"Cap'n, you ain't seriously thinking of dumping him off, are you?" Kaylee looked up, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, her gaze darting back and forth between him and Simon "'Cause what was the point of saving him if that's the case."

"Hush now, Li'l Kaylee. Sometimes it pays to be practical. Can't feed ourselves on compassion can we?" Mal looked earnestly at the girl.

"_Gou shi_!" snapped the mechanic. "Don't 'Li'l Kaylee' me. Y'ain't thinking about anyone's feelings on the matter. Crew is crew. You don't take it upon your ownself to make decisions that affect us all. If'n we want to eat less in order for Jayne for stay here where he belongs and get well then that's up to us, not just you."

Simon slipped a consoling arm around her shoulders. "I'm not certain we can offer Jayne the care he needs."

Kaylee shook him off her. "Oh and how about your precious sister? She could've improved quicker with specialists fixing up her brain, but we didn't dump her off for the sake of the crew."

Without waiting for a reply the girl ran out of the infirmary, a fist balled against her mouth.

Simon's lips twisted into a wry smile. "Sometimes I think women and men are two _entirely_ different species."

"Ain't that right." Mal stared at the floor, unwilling or maybe even unable to bring himself to look at the mercenary lying on the bed.

"This isn't anything to do with how we feel about Jayne…"

Simon continued to speak, but Mal had long since stopped listening struck by the sudden realisation of just how much this was about feelings -- hidden ones, hurting ones, overpowering ones.

While the doctor was busy checking Jayne's vitals Mal snatched the opportunity to slip away quietly. Managing to reach his bunk without bumping into a solitary person he snuck inside like a thief and locked the hatch. Then, unable to risk closing his eyes, he lay on the bed with both hands tucked neatly behind his head out of mischief's way. Ever since Jayne had returned to the ship the dreams had been getting more frequent and more powerful and Mal knew full well that his eagerness to offload the man was just a desperate attempt to conceal whatever the hell was going on inside his humped up head.

Kaylee needn't have gotten so upset. He'd never do something like that and it jarred a little that she thought he was capable of it. Yes, he shut himself off from the rest at times, but never because he didn't care about them. His spells of silence were more a case of him struggling with his own demons.

Another vicious thought struck him square on the temple. Through no fault of his own Jayne was fast evolving into one of them demons and Mal wasn't at all sure how to go about exorcising him. What he _did_ know was that something had to be done to end this.

Eyelids sliding shut from sheer exhaustion he soon found himself trapped inside two conjoined worlds. The battle for Serenity Valley was raging around him. The ground, washed red with blood and littered with bodies, was a painful replay of actual events, but amidst all of this carnage was Jayne, strong and proud, his eyes blazing fiercely with anger.

The big man was already bruised and bleeding and Mal was hesitant to initiate an attack, but had no choice in the matter when the mercenary raced forward, barrelling into him and knocking him onto his back. Mud squelched around his frame and even though he was winded from the weight of his assailant Mal felt the surge of adrenaline and the pump of blood as it hurtled through his veins and was infused with the thrill of a fight.

Snarling, he hooked a leg around Jayne's calf and with an upward thrust of his torso dislodged the big man from where he lay sprawled across him, twisting them over until he took his turn at being the aggressor.

Scrabbling for purchase on slippery skin he grabbed a handful of clothing and dragged Jayne to his feet. The cloth ripped beneath his fingers revealing a muscled chest and abdomen carpeted with thick hair and Mal gulped knowing exactly how this was going to end. Cock already half-hard in his pants he braced himself for attack, arms outstretched ready adopting a wrestling stance. Jayne was soon coming at him and they grappled, sliding helplessly on the slippery surface until once again Mal ended up on his back with Jayne resting solid between his legs.

_Tamade_, he was turned on. Panting hard he raised his hips allowing Jayne to free him from his breeches and as he reciprocated, his hands fumbling to release Jayne from his pants, their mouths clashed together silencing a chorus of aggression.

The fight for supremacy still undecided they rolled over and over, the wet slip of mud and sweat bonding them until they became an animate statue. Then supercharged on energy Mal took first blood, managing to force the bigger man down onto his front. Pressing his advantage he took Jayne hard, his cock finding its way home with one long swift thrust.

Succumbing to the sex with a grunt of approval Jayne pushed back against him so eagerly that Mal's balls were compressed tightly between their two bodies, the slap and squelch accompaniment as arousing as the throaty huff of pleasure emanating from the big man beneath him.

He awoke with a start, shoving his clothing down and extending the dream into fantasy as he imagined it was Jayne he was embedded inside rather than the tunnel of his fist. Coming with the usual shudder of shame he sat up, wiping away the semen with a pair of shorts grabbed from the top of his laundry bag. Hurriedly he jumped out of bed and rinsed off the underwear in the small sink.

*

Being home would have been an out and out ecstatic experience for Jayne if'n it weren't for a couple of small details. One: his body was out of action and to his way of thinking, completely useless and two: he hadn't seen sight nor sound of the captain since he'd been back on Serenity. This hurt more'n it should have done and Jayne didn't want to dwell on it a whole lot.

"Breakfast time."

Kaylee breezed in to the infirmary with a tray balanced carefully on one hand in true waitress style and Jayne didn't waste any time, grabbing the bowl from her and shovelling spoonfuls of hot cereal into his mouth. His stomach still clenched up at the first mouthful of food--the reminder of how low he'd almost sunk breaking the surface again--but the comforting sweetness of that mush soon drove the demons away.

"You should think about having meals with the rest of us," suggested Simon, looking up from the piece of laboratory equipment he'd been gazing at for ages.

"If'n I could get there then maybe I would," growled Jayne.

"Use that crutch I gave you."

"Doc, shut the gorram hell up and let a feller get on with his eating." Jayne stared down at the slop. Suddenly its greyish colour and sticky consistency reminded him all too much of prison mud and he set the bowl back down on the tray with a disconsolate thud.

"It ain't no trouble for me to bring him his meals here," said Kaylee a little too brightly and Jayne intercepted a cold look from the doctor. He didn't want them to start fighting on account of him.

"I should be eating 'n sleeping back in my bunk 'stead of this rutting sick bay," he muttered. Least then he'd be away from the tension that stretched out between the mechanic and the doc, twanging like piano wire every time they bickered.

Simon folded his arms and stared him down. "You could if you'd start doing some of these exercises voluntarily without me having to force you into it every day."

Jayne felt his lower lip jut out. "They hurt and they don't do no good," he whined.

He should've died down at the bottom of that hole. Then they would've fetched him back, _a jolting lump, beyond all needs of tenderness and care_ and planted him in the ground where he belonged.

*

Sometimes the shepherd read to him in order to pass the time. To start off with Jayne refused to listen to any war poems. Book didn't know it but they were already stacked up inside him, turning his head into a gorram library and instead he insisted on stories about gunfights and thieving with a fair amount of show girls and whores thrown in for good measure. However them kind of tales didn't turn out to be as gripping as they should've been and Jayne found himself constantly drifting back to Serenity Valley with Mal sleeping in his arms while the thunderstorm of battle rumbled far off in the distance.

He should've been horned up from the descriptions of the scantily clad womenfolk and the brightly coloured pictures all over the covers, but instead he felt lost. "Read the poems," he said, spitting out the words like they were rancid rain water.

The shepherd didn't reply; he just stared thoughtfully into space for a second and then chose a more sombre looking book to replace the penny dreadful. It seemed to Jayne that a smile of satisfaction would sit comfortably on the old man's face right about now and he risked a glance in Book's direction. The smugness weren't there, but it sure as heck oughta have been.

_"War drags men to the very edge,  
Where they must shut completely down  
All emotion, all caring, all feeling  
Just to survive the experience.  
Impervious to pain, suffering and death,  
They blankly assimilate war's horror  
And continue on as human shells  
Who have experienced too much death,  
Who have seen too much destruction,  
Old men in young boys bodies  
Who will never…be quite the same."_  
*

"The way I see it, Jayne, you ain't gonna ever get to fitness laying around the infirmary like a spoon-fed harem boy."

This was the first time Jayne had set eyes on Mal Reynolds since he'd been back on board ship and to be honest it weren't the kind of greeting he'd been hoping for.

"I ain't ready-" he was in the process of muttering when the captain interrupted him with some more of them harsh words.

"You ain't ready for nothing because you don't _wanna_ be ready for nothing."

Mal leaned in, cold bead eyes staring out of angry slits and the sudden hand grasping his genitals through the double layer of cotton made Jayne shiver. Blood inexplicably flowed down toward his private parts and it was only the fierce grip that stopped him filling to attention. It had been a lifetime since anyone had touched him there.

"And here was I thinking these had gone missing." Mal tightened his grip on Jayne's balls then let go with a disgruntled sigh.

"I ain't-" Jayne floundered, rejecting excuse after excuse as it came into his head.

"If you ain't ready to come back then you ain't worth a thing to me."

The telling off was bad, but it was nothing compared to being dragged like a cripple through the common area and into the hold wearing nothing but his boxers and shirt. As his face was pushed up against the glass view pane of the airlock doors Jayne could hear the echoing thud of footsteps from above.

"Mal! No!"

He was too humped to figure out who was doing the talking. Couldn't even tell whether the speaker had been a man or a woman.

"Y'all get the gorram hell away from here and let me run my ship the way I see fit."

There was a long profound silence and then Mal yelled out, "Go" in such a ferocious manner that Jayne wondered if the captain hadn't gone and lost his mind somewhere during his travels. The waning clatter of folk leaving the catwalk was not a comfort.

"You got some fast thinking to do," said Mal and Jayne could _hear_ that bitter smirk twist up the man's face. "Do you belong in here or outside in the black? It's make your mind up time."

_In winter trenches, cowed and glum,   
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,   
He put a bullet through his brain.   
No one spoke of him again..._


End file.
